Brad Bird on the Parr Timeline and Adding Personal Touches in ‘Incredibles 2’

It’s has been 14 years since we’ve seen the Parr family come together and fight villains. For Brad Bird, he didn’t really notice the years gone by between the first film and the upcoming release of The Incredibles 2.

“I think there is a tendency nowadays to not get the soda pop,” Bird explained in an earlier press junket where the NOC attended in March. “You just want direct syrup. You just want ‘Syrup now!’ I don’t know. I think that, for me, it was not intentional. I just don’t think it wasn’t the greatest idea creatively to follow up with a successful film with its sequel. You want to take time. You want to think about it. You want to enjoy the process.”

It was only until a few years ago, Bird realized he should get back to working on the anticipated sequel. He always did have a story in mind where Helen Parr aka Elastigirl would take the reigns as the superhero while Bob Parr aka Mr. Incredible stayed at home with the kids and that Jack Jack’s powers would manifest in this glorious way. Bird also revealed that he never wanted to ever age them between movies. The Incredibles 2 will begin immediately after the events in the first Incredibles.

“I just thought it was bold and weird,” revealed Bird at the press conference today. “People take the time that passes very literally and they think that linearly that the character should have aged. If they aged their superpowers don’t reflect the part of life that they’re in and the role in the family. I worked on the first 8 seasons of The Simpsons and the Simpsons haven’t aged a day and they’re still on the air. It worked for them, so why not us?”

After 14 years had passed, Bird didn’t forget to add some of his own personal touches into the story.

“It seems like outwardly a commercial movie but it’s actually strangely personal to me,” Bird said. “It has a lot of the things that I love at the age of 10, a lot of them I still love, combined with the family I grew up with and the family that I have with my wife and sons. It’s kind of all the stuff I love combined with both families I’ve had in my life. So, to me, it seems like a brightly colored pop confection. It’s actually really personal to me. I like those characters and they’re comfortable to me and I have fun hearing them talk.”

What was one of the beloved things added in? Jonny Quest.

Bird told the audience that Jonny Quest was an animated show that just fit with The Incredibles universe for its action and adventure style set in the early ’60s.

“I love Jonny Quest,” revealed Bird. “A lot of people don’t remember that it wasn’t made for Saturday morning. It was made for primetime. It came on at night and adults watched it. People died in it. It had everything that an 8-year-old wanted in it – mummies, tetradecyl, guns, a kid from another country who could levitate things, a bodyguard with a fling with a girl that might be dangerous, lasers, hydrofoils, jetpacks, and reptiles and robot spies. I just about exploded when I saw the opening title to it. We had to give Jonny Quest a shout out. We had to.”